Edward M(oore) Kennedy Biography (1932– )

U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy was hospitalized May 17, 2008, after suffering a seizure.

He was “undergoing further evaluation” at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston on Monday (May 19, 2008) after spending a “restful night,” according to Kennedy’s spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter. 

Cutter also said Kennedy spent May 18 watching sports and movies and visiting with family.  He is expected to stay at the hospital overnight into May 20.

Doctors have not released information on Kennedy’s condition or on the cause of his seizure. 

“Preliminary tests have determined that he has not suffered a stroke and is not in any immediate danger,” Larry Ronan, Kennedy's primary care physician, said in an e-mailed statement.

Edward Moore Kennedy was born in Boston on Feb. 22, 1932, the youngest son of Joseph Kennedy. Raised in a family that placed a high priority on achievement, he persuaded a Harvard classmate to sit an exam for him and was suspended.

After serving in the army, he finished Harvard and went on to graduate from the University of Virginia Law School (1959).

Only 30 years old when he ran for the U.S. Senate seat his brother John had vacated when he became president, Kennedy began his term in November 1962.

A staunch liberal, he sponsored bills on immigration reform, criminal code reform, fair housing, public education, health care, AIDS research, and a variety of programmes to aid the poor.  On the Senate judiciary committee, he upheld liberal positions on abortion, capital punishment, and racial busing.

After the assassinations of his brothers John (1963) and Robert Kennedy (1968), he was widely regarded as a potential candidate for president. In 1969 he became the youngest-ever majority whip in the US Senate, but his involvement the same year in a car accident at Chappaquidick, MA in which a woman companion (Mary Jo Kopechne) was drowned, dogged his subsequent political career and slowed his unsuccessful bid for president in 1980. 

He continued to be one of the most outspoken advocates for liberal positions, and by the time of his second marriage in 1992 he seemed to have matured and mellowed in his personal life.